It is well known in the art that surfaces, such as walkways, driveways, patios, floors, work surfaces, walls and other interior or exterior surfaces can be covered for durability and aesthetics with flagstones, stones, bricks, pavers, tiles and other architectural surface covering elements. Natural stone surface coverings are constructed by fitting together irregularly sized and shaped flat stones, such as flagstone and slate. This work requires a skilled stonemason to select, cut and fit the stones. It is labor intensive, and accordingly expensive.
Various efforts have been made to develop artificial building elements, such as bricks, stones, flagstones, pavers, or the like with the appearance of natural stone. Such artificial building elements are usually relatively inexpensively mass produced by molding them from concrete, usually in a dry casting operation. They are typically provided in geometric shapes, such as triangles, squares, rectangles and hexagons, or combinations thereof. This allows the side by side placement of multiple elements in fitting arrangement to produce a surface covering. The geometric elements are usually installed in repeating geometric patterns. The repetitive nature of these patterns counteracts any ‘natural’ appearance possibly achieved on the individual elements. Furthermore, although conventional artificial surface covering elements can be laid in random, non-repeating patterns, those patterns still do not achieve the aesthetically pleasing appearance nor the degree of natural irregularity that is desirable in custom stone walkways, driveways, patios and the like.
Numerous manufactured stones have been developed which do not have a regular geometric outline and are intended to provide the appearance of natural stone. However, in order to ensure a continuous and durable surface covering without shifting, the individual stones in the covering need to fit together, which means they must be shaped for a fitting arrangement with other like stones. This is especially the case with paving stones and is the reason why natural stone coverings are labor intensive to install and expensive. The requirement that the stones need to engage other like stones in a fitting arrangement severely limits the range of shapes, which can be used for the individual stones. Even when a small number of different shapes are used, placement of many stones over a larger area again results in a regular, repeating surface pattern. The requirement for a fitting arrangement also means that surface coverings of known artificial stones, even if stones with irregular shapes are used, are easily recognizable by their regular joint width. This is due to the fact that conventional stones have identical or at least very similar top and bottom contours.
Thus, there still exists a need for an artificial stone, flagstone, paving stone and the like which has the appearance of natural stone, even when installed in a fitting arrangement with other like stones in a regular pattern.